What is FORMATIVE Assessment?

Who am I?

What do we know about this topic?• What breed of dog is this?• What AKC group is this dog in?• What are the characteristics of this breed?• What was the last dog of this breed to win the

WKC Best In Show?

I am a GERMAN SHORTHAIRED POINTER!

• I am in the SPORTING GROUP of the AKC.• I am a high performance hunting dog. Many regard

me as the most versatile of sporting dogs with land and water skills.

• My 19th century origins can be traced to Germany and Austria, where old Spanish Pointer was probably mixed with English Foxhound and other scent hounds.

• Introduced here in the 1920's, I quickly earned the respect of serious hunters, who found me to be athletic, easy to train, and generous in nature.

• With enough exercise, I am well suited to family life, tooI

WKC Best In Show WINNER, 2005!

• Champion Kan-Point's VJK Autumn RosesAlso known as ‘CARLEE’, from Castle Rock,

Colorado• Owners: L & R Stark & C Cronk & V Nunes-Atkinson

Information from: American Kennel Club; AKC.org

Learn more about man’s (and woman’s!) BEST FRIEND!

• The Westminster Kennel Club 134th Annual Dog Show - Madison Square Garden, NYC

• Monday and Tuesday, February 15-16, 2010• USA Network• 15th Annual Rocky Mountain Cluster Dog Show

February 12-15, 2010Sponsored by The Colorado Kennel Club and the Plum Creek Kennel Club

• The National Western Stock Show Complex

Purpose and Benefits of Formative Assessment

• Black and Wiliam (1998b) define assessment broadly to include all activities that teachers and students undertake to get information that can be used diagnostically to alter teaching and learning.

• Under this definition, assessment encompasses teacher observation, classroom discussion, and analysis of student work, including homework and tests.

• Assessments become formative when the information is used to adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs.

• Boston, Carol (2002). The concept of formative assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(9).

Types of Formative Assessment

• Questioning and Classroom Discussion Opportunities to increase students' knowledge and improve understanding while the teacher gains knowledge of students’ level of knowledge and skill.

• Teachers need to make sure to ask thoughtful, reflective questions and then give students adequate time to respond.

In order to involve everyone, try strategies such as:

– Invite students to discuss their thinking about a question or topic in pairs or small groups, then ask a representative to share the thinking with the larger group (sometimes called think-pair-share).

– Present several possible answers to a question, then ask students to vote on them. Ask all students to write down an answer, then read a selected few out loud.

– Have students write their understanding of vocabulary, skill or concepts before and after instruction.

– Ask students to summarize the main ideas they've taken away from a lecture, discussion, or assignment.

– Exit Slips.– Interview students individually or in groups about their thinking as they solve

problems. – Assign brief, in-class writing assignments (e.g., "Why is this person or event

representative of this time period in history?)

• Boston, Carol (2002). The concept of formative assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(9).

Types of Formative Assessment(cont.)

In addition to these classroom techniques, tests can be used formatively if teachers analyze where students are in their learning and provide specific, focused feedback regarding performance and ways to improve it. Black and Wiliam (1998b) make the following recommendations:

• Frequent short tests are better than infrequent long ones. • New learning should be tested within about a week of first

exposure. • Be mindful of the quality of test items and work with other teachers

and outside sources to collect good ones.• Portfolios, or collections of student work, may also be used

formatively if students and teachers annotate the entries and observe growth over time and practice

• Duschl & Gitomer, 1997).• Boston, Carol (2002). The concept of formative assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(9).

Summative Assessment

• Summative assessments are cumulative evaluations used to measure student growth after instruction and are generally given at the end of a course in order to determine whether long term learning goals have been met.

• Our POST-test is a form of SUMMATIVE assessment.

Additional Forms of Summative Assessment

• PortfoliosPersonal Financial Plans (PFL)

• ProjectsGroup and IndividualTechnology basedResearch based

• Student Presentations CTE Presentation Night ~ April 15

Discussion Question

How can these types of assents support testingperformance?